BABY IN THE MIRROR

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

★★★½

“a gentle, intimate hour with moments of truth and tenderness”

Joey and Lena have just moved into a new home. Cardboard boxes are still stacked around them, their lives mid-transition. They are also about to have a baby, with the help of their friend Ollie, who has stepped in as a sperm donor. It is an intriguing premise, full of questions about queer family, readiness, and desire.

SecondAdolescence’s debut play, Baby in the Mirror, begins with warmth and ease. Joey and Lena’s relationship is tenderly drawn, their banter light and affectionate. There is a genuine intimacy between them, and the dialogue has a softness and spark that makes it feel as if we have been invited into their living room to quietly watch. Ollie brings a flash of flamboyance and chaos, a counterpoint to the couple’s cosy dynamic. The rapport between the three is easy and believable, creating a tenderness in the intimacy that is one of the play’s most appealing qualities.

Gradually, it becomes clear that one of them is ready for the baby, and one of them is not, though neither can quite bring themselves to say it. Lena struggles with anxiety, culminating in a panic attack towards the end, while Joey quietly sits on their own fears.

The performances are the production’s strongest asset. Stella Marie Sophie as Lena carries a physical tension that says as much as the dialogue, curling into themselves in moments of distress. Joey is played with a softness and vulnerability by Zoë West, the conflict of wanting to be honest but not wanting to hurt their partner written across their face. Ollie, played by Derek Mitchell, has an infectious energy that stops the domesticity from becoming too still, though his presence sometimes threatens to tip the balance of the trio away from the central couple’s emotional journey. It is in these small physical beats and tonal shifts that the piece finds its emotional depth.

Stylistically, Baby in the Mirror feels like it is aiming for extreme naturalism. There are moments where the stillness, silences, and offhand rhythms of conversation land beautifully. Leaning further into that mode could strengthen the work. At times, the writing and direction seems hesitant to fully commit to it, pulling back into more conventional theatrical beats just when the awkward pauses or meandering chats are at their most revealing.

While the premise promises a probing look at what it means for queer couples to create a family, the story really centres the relationship itself. This is lovely to watch, but it leaves many of the broader ideas unexplored. The questions posed by the play’s premise remain mostly at the edges.

The ending is abrupt. It does not carry the charge of a deliberate cliffhanger, more the feeling that the conversation has simply stopped. This adds to the sense that the piece is an early draft of something with much more to say. The craft of the dialogue, the chemistry between the performers, and the gentle humour all suggest strong foundations. With further development, the play could dig deeper into its characters’ inner worlds, while bringing the social and political contexts into sharper focus.

As it stands, Baby in the Mirror is a gentle, intimate hour with moments of truth and tenderness, but it feels like it is only just beginning to scratch the surface of the family story it wants to tell.

BABY IN THE MIRROR

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Reviewed on 9th August 2025 at Red Lecture Theatre at Summerhall

by Joseph Dunitz

Photography by Ejay Freeman

BABY IN THE MIRROR

★★★★

“a sophisticated and ambitious piece of writing”

Four generations of Northern Irish women gather for their great-grandmother’s 90th birthday: a family kitchen, a table set for dinner, and a tangle of unspoken histories. Over the course of the meal, tensions simmer, humour bubbles, and old wounds begin to show.
Karis Kelly’s Consumed, winner of the Women’s Prize for Playwriting, starts as a sharp and funny domestic drama. There is a clear and believable connection between the four women, with glances, shared gestures, and that mix of affection and irritation that comes from a lifetime under the same family roof. The youngest of the four, Muireann (Muireann Ní Fhaogáin), passionate about climate change, patriarchy and oat milk, clashes with the more traditional views of her elders, while the matriarchal Eileen (Julia Dearden) and her daughter Gilly (Andrea Irvine) bring their own layered history into the room. References to marriage, relationships, and what it means to “wear the trousers” in a partnership give a smart, often funny look at generational shifts and the ways some things have not shifted at all.

The performances are uniformly strong. Dearden brings a magnetic, grounded presence to great-grandmother Eileen, her deep voice and unfiltered honesty contrasting beautifully with Irvine’s effervescent Gilly, who hides her own struggles behind a bubbly façade. Caoimhe Farren has admirable conviction as Jenny and takes her to the extremities of emotion on her journey through the play. Ní Fhaogáin is convincing as the teenager great-granddaughter, although at times could do a little more to ensure she is keeping in tone with the rest of the cast.

Lily Arnold’s set is gorgeous in its detail, from the mould creeping through the wallpaper to the scuffed skirting boards and the cupboard crammed with expired tins and Bags for Life. The latter is a sly nod to the generational gap between caring for the planet and knowing how to go about it in practice. The smell of real cooking drifts into the audience, making the kitchen feel genuinely lived-in. Beth Duke’s sound design, Guy Hoare’s lighting and Karis Kelly’s witty script combine to welcome us fully into this family home.

As the piece moves into its final third, the familiar realism tilts suddenly towards supernatural horror. Flickering lights and rumbling sounds hint at something darker lurking in the house. It is an exciting shift in the writing, but the transition feels abrupt in performance. The tone wavers between psychological horror and heightened dark comedy, leaving some moments caught between the two without committing fully to either. A couple of emotional escalations, such as Jenny’s sudden outburst trashing the room, also jar against the otherwise well-paced dynamics.

Even with those uneven final beats, Consumed is a sophisticated and ambitious piece of writing, rich with ideas about generational trauma, women’s roles, and the histories we carry in our bodies as well as our memories. It is sharply funny, often moving, and brought to life by four captivating performances. With a little more space to breathe into its tonal shift, it could land with even greater impact.

Tag Archives: EFR25

BABY IN THE MIRROR

★★★½

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

BABY IN THE MIRROR

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

★★★½

“a gentle, intimate hour with moments of truth and tenderness”